TK (TEEN): I dropped a quarter, Miss Harrison, and it rolled under the bookshelf.

SS: All right, butplease tuck in your shirt, Trent. This is a library. People don't come in here to see the crevasse between your gluteus maximi, do they.

TK (TEEN): What's that, Miss Harrison?

SS: Your butt crack.

TK (TEEN): Oh. Sorry.

(FOOTSTEPS) (DEEP BREATH, AND TO HERSELF)

SS: Ah, fall. How I love it. After the torpor of summer, everyone alert and moving forward againpeople reading again. (PHONE RING, FOOTSTEPS QUICKEN) People curious and inquisitive again. (PICK UP PHONE) Reference desk. This is Miss Harrison. How may I help you? (MALE VOICE AT OTHER END) You came across what in a book? (VOICE)LP records? You saw a reference in a book to LP records? (VOICE)what is it? (VOICE) No, it's not liquid propane. It's a vinyl disc that plays music. (INCREDULOUS VOICE). You put a needle on it and sound comes out. (VOICE) No sir, it does not. It was in wide use around the world up until ten years ago. (VOICE). Yes, the LP record. (VOICE) You're welcome, goodbye. (HANGUP) Goodness.

TK (TEEN): Who was that, Miss Harrison?

SS: Oh, just an inquiring young mind, Trent.

TK (TEEN): Oh, ok. Anything you want me to do before I go?

SS: Let's lock up, Trent.

TK (TEEN): Now?

SS: Why not?

TK (TEEN): There's a guy in the reference section I told him we were open for another twenty minutes.

SS: Well, I'll go see to him. (FOOTSTEPS, HIGH HEELS) Hello  I just wanted to let you know that we're closing in five minutes.

Garrison Keillor: Oh. Okay. I guess I can come back tomorrow and look for it.

SS: We're closed tomorrow. What are you looking for? Maybe I can help.

GK: It's all right. I don't want to bother you.

SS: It's no bother, it's my job. What is it?

GK: You're about to close and I don't want to hold you 

SS: Just tell me what you're looking for and I'll tell you if we have it.

GK: It's such an odd thing you probably never heard of it before.

SS: What is it?

GK: It's nothing, really. I can probably find it online.

SS: Sir

GK: Yes.

SS: Something about you tells me you're from Minnesota.

GK: I am, yes.

SS: I thought so. Listen if you don't tell me what you're looking for, I am going to throw you to the floor and beat you into submission, so why not just save yourself the trouble

GK: I don't really need it

SS: Five, four, three...

GK: I'm looking for a DVD.

SS: A DVD???

GK: I know, I shouldn't have said anything.

SS: This is a library. We deal in books here.

GK: I know. Listen it's okay never mind

SS: Well what's the name of it? I'll look it up in our database.

GK: I'm sure it's not in there

SS: Why wouldn't it be in there?

GK: It's kind of an obscure thinganyway I'm bothering you, I should just go

SS: If you don't tell me the title, I will take this chain that my glasses are hanging on and I will wrap it around your neck and make marks that will last for the rest of your life!!!!

SS: The library doesn't, but I do. Behind the circulation desk. (BRISK FOOTSTEPS)

GK: I'm amazed that anybody has heard about it
You and I must be the only two people in the whole country who 

SS: I love that long shot of that hopeful dog, alone in a fenced yard with a ball-that look on his face I can't get it out of my mind. (RUMMAGING) Ah, here it is Come. Sit at my desk we can watch it on my computer (DVD INSERTS, FRENCH MUSIC).

GK: It's the campfire scene. This is the scene I wanted to see

SS: The best scene of the whole movie.

GK: Look at his face...

SS: He's burning his marshmallow.

(TR MOURNFUL FRENCH, FRENCH MUSIC)

SS: (SIGH) Only the French could make a comedy like this

GK: It's sort of an existential comedy.

SS: Yes.

GK: Here's the part I like. His marshmallow is on fire and now she comes and puts her hand on his

(TK WOMAN MURMURS IN FRENCH)

GK (READING): Life is unfair, everything is pain. (TR FRENCH) Burn, marshmallow, burn, and take me with you.

(TK WOMAN FRENCH)

GK: I love your blackened crust, dropping into the flames

SS: Invisible among the smouldering ashes...

(TR MOURNFUL FRENCH)

GK: Man is alone in the universe. The marshmallow of faith is gone. We are condemned to freedom.

SS: That is so beautiful. Let me rewind. (REWIND, THEN TR SAME MOURNFUL FRENCH)

SS: Man is alone in the universe. The marshmallow of faith is gone. We are condemned to 

GK: to freedom.

SS: And now he remembers...

(TR FRENCH, MUSIC SWELLS)

GK: My love. I have brought the chocolate.

(TK WOMAN FRENCH EXCLAMATION)

SS: The chocolate! The chocolate! Then we are not alone!!

(TR FRENCH, FRENCH MUSIC)

GK: Come my love. We shall put the melted marshmallow between the graham crackers with the chocolate.

SS: And now he fishes the marshmallow out of the flames...that is so beautiful...

GK: Just in time...

SS: This part makes me cry...I'm gonna lose it here..

(TR FRENCH)

GK: See? It is still good.

(TK WOMAN FRENCH)

SS: Love is good because it gives us painand this is how we know we are alive.

(TR FRENCH)

GK: Magnificent pain. (THEME UP)

SS (CHOKES): I think I'm going to cry. What are you doing?

GK: I'm putting my arm around you.

SS: Why?

GK: Because you're here and so am I. And I have an arm.

SS: Yes, you do.

GK: Yes.

SS: May I put my head on your shoulder?

GK: Please.

SS: Oh. Ok. (SNIFFLES, STIFLED SOB)

GK: You want to watch it again?

SS: Yes. Again and again and again.

(REWIND NOISES, FRENCH MUSIC)

TR (ANNC): Once again, from the hushed reading room of the Herndon County Library, Ruth Harrison, Reference Librarian. Brought to you by St. Paul Brand Lo-fat Library Paste. Now in fourteen different fruit flavors. (THEME OUT)

Lovingly selected from the earliest archives of A Prairie Home Companion, this heirloom collection represents the music from earliest years of the now legendary show: 1974–1976. With songs and tunes from jazz pianist Butch Thompson, mandolin maestro Peter Ostroushko, Dakota Dave Hull and the first house band, The Powdermilk Biscuit Band (Adam Granger, Bob Douglas and Mary DuShane).